As the use of the Internet is becoming more popular, more web applications are deployed. An application as used herein generally refers to a program or a suite of programs executable by one or more processors to perform tasks and/or functions. A network access application generally refers to an application that accesses a network (e.g., an intranet, the Internet, etc.) to send and/or receive data, such as a browser, an electronic mail engine, etc. A web application broadly refers to an application accessible with a network access application over a network (e.g., an intranet, the Internet, etc.). A web server at the backend typically executes the web application, while the network access application acts as a client (also referred to as a thin client) at the front end. One conventional practice in providing web applications is to use a proxy server (also referred to as a web proxy) to interface between the browser and the web server. Conventionally, the proxy server passively forwards requests and/or responses between the web server and the browser.
A web transaction generally refers to a sequence of requests made by a client, typically via a network access application, over a network to remotely access a web application. It is often useful to collect information about web transactions for monitoring and testing web applications. Currently, a browser plugin may be installed on the client to collect information on a sequence of operations done to perform a web transaction against the web application (e.g., logging in and starting a particular web application). However, this conventional approach requires the user on the client side to install the plugin and to maintain the plugin, which may impose a lot of undesirable hassles on the user. In addition to requiring installation and maintenance of the plugin on the client, the plugin may also be specific to a single, proprietary network access application. Thus, the user has to install multiple plugins if the user wants to use different browsers from different vendors.